In cigarette production, bundles of cigarettes of a predetermined number (usually 20) are wrapped in a paper and aluminum laminate which is referred to in the art as "foil". Thereafter, the foil wrapped bundle ("foil-bundle") is enwrapped in either a soft pack label comprising a paper or paper laminate, or in the alternative is enwrapped within a cardboard hinge lid blank.
In the past, information concerning the product (such as its time and/or place of manufacture or other information at the election of the manufacturer) was embossed or otherwise applied to the foil portion of the packaging. A consequence of such arrangement was that the outer portion of the packaging, such as the soft pack label or the cardboard blank, together with any cellophane overwrap, would have to be removed in order to access the encoded information. Accordingly, prior practices necessitated the opening and or destruction of the cigarette pack in order to ascertain date of manufacture or the like.
Printing the desired encoded information upon the outer portion of the cigarette packaging has presented manifold difficulties. Cigarette manufacturing and packing operations are conducted at extreme speeds such that any on-line printing operation at the cigarette packer tends to cause ink smearing both upon the cigarette product and upon portions of the packing machinery. Ink smears on the product compromises its quality and may lead to additional rejection of product and other manufacturing inefficiencies. Ink smears on the manufacturing machinery necessitates clean-up, taking the machine out of production and so creating additional costs.
Another particular problem associated with soft pack cigarette product is that the body of the completed package is pliable and does not present a consistent surface for precise printing operations. Accordingly, the finished soft pack packaging itself is not conducive to printing operations once the package has been fully formed.
Another difficulty in attempting to execute on-line printing operations within a cigarette packing machine is that placement of printing apparatus may interfere with smooth and consistent feeding of the packaging material.